The Grove, Balham

My husband and I decided to have a little gathering at The Grove as we were moving out of the area and invited a few friends and neighbours for a drink at The Grove, we chose this pub because it was perfectly located for our friends to walk to and everyone was familiar with this pub. Unfortunately on this evening from the moment we walked in the person who I believed to be the manageress with blond shoulder length hair decided that she would not smile for the entire duration that we were there but rather made we feel as if we were disturbing her peace. The pub wasn�t even busy that particular evening and at one point there must have been at least 30 to our party so considering we brought 60-70% of the business a little friendly smile from the staff would have been nice, I had called in advance to try and book the seating area but was told it was already book, so with so many people we moved one table to join another which by the time half of our guests had left the manageress instructed her barman to ask us to move this table back, considering there was still 8-10 of us there and that the bar was still relatively empty still we thought this was a little rude, if she didn�t want us to move it in the first place she could have told us straight away. Earlier on some friends also came with their 18 year old son and when they bought a round of drinks the manageress asked to see his ID even though his parents vouched for him that he was indeed 18 and can legally drink but she insisted that unless he showed his ID he was not to consume any alcohol on the premises, as they only lived down the road he could have easily ran back to get it but he decided not to drink, even though the lady was only doing her job surely it was a little rude and a bit �jobs worth� of her to undermine his parents. Near the end of our evening at this pub the teenagers parents bought him half a pint of Guinness but the moment the poor boy put his lips to it the manageress instructed her barman again to dash out again from behind the bar and quite publicly gave the teenager and the parents a telling off for buying him a drink. For arguments sakes if for some reason the pub was raided and the police asked for the 18yr olds ID he would have just popped down the road and got it. She could have asked the parents of proof of their address to make sure they were local so that if needed his ID were close at hand, but instead she just chose to embarrass him and undermine his parents.
Considering the amount of money that we spent in the pub the staff especially the manageress was extremely ungracious, as I said it was as if our being there annoyed her, we weren�t rowdy or drunk, our group consisted of couples a couple of young families and a couple of teenagers. We were all local residence who had been to the Grove before. Even when we came to settle the final bar tab which was a significant amount the manageress do not smile at all and I barely heard her say thank you. All I can say is she has put many of us off from going back to the Grove and we certainly would not recommend it to any of our friends anymore.

23 May 2011 22:02